TOTAL SCORE (PLAYERS):

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In Win the White House, students take on the role of a presidential candidate for the United States of America. Players must manage the entire campaign from primary season all the way through the general election. To win, students use a mix of time and resource management to gain control of as many electoral votes as they can over a ten-week campaign. During each round, players must choose the proper use of media, public engagements, polling, and fund raising.

As other games in the iCivics series, Win the White House allows players to learn key civics knowledge and 21st century skills. In addition, students will learn how understanding individual state politics, voter preference, and media can affect a campaign.

I liked the basic concept of the game. It is so hard getting people to understand the basic concepts of the presidential primary and electoral college politics.

Here are some things that I would do differently.

Most importantly, pacing. Things like the radio tower, do not add to the game and provides a moment for the students to walk away.

Why pick five issues to start? They’ve already answered those correctly. Let them pick and try to get right the top issues for each state.

The answers are too easy for middle school students. If you want to make it easier for them, add a training component, like ask for advice from your campaign manager.

Play the primary and the general election through. This points out how you need to address different issues to win within the party and in the general election.

Do, the polling, but have the results come back from all states.

I would also change the amount of money raised and how they use it. Can do any combination of five things in a turn (fund raise, appearance, media buy). The fund raising would still require a speech. Only difference is that the answer affects the amount of money raised and not momentum.

One last thought, is the adviser Henry Kissinger? 😉

Anyway, good structure. Just needs some tweaking.

8

Tom Mowbray

Total Game Reviews:
30

Very interesting civics lessons. Definitely brought out many current affairs issues, and captures the sense of dynamics of fundraising, appearances, polling, and advertising. It was fun running against Wingbat, by the way! I tried playing both ways and apparently your opponent is always Wingbat! The issues selection is nicely partitioned between parties. As in real politics, those issue choices are some of the most important in the campaign. I noticed two things that concerned me: the automated opponents were allowed to cheat and fund raise in states they did not control… also the allocation of state political leanings was absurdly random, e.g. Red states looked like Blue states and vice versa, some states supported conflicting issues or issues from left field such as nuclear disarmament.

10

elaugen13

Total Game Reviews:
1

Great all around game. Fun to play and educational. Awesome!

8

sartanc

Total Game Reviews:
1

This game is extremely addicting, the only problem I had was that I had some troubles with controls as when i clicked on them it wouldn’t respond. One thing I liked is how the states were different. So overall a very good game but some bugs could be improved or maybe its just me and i don’t know how to play the game that well yet. The tutorial was extremely helpful by the way. Now i do game sometimes, and this is at the top of my reviews for browser games. Its extremely simple to learn right off the bat and the goal is well defined since it often makes the news in real life. Sorry for the long review, its just i needed to explain my ideas. Thanks.

7

brycekrahn

Total Game Reviews:
1

I chose to play this game because it looked fun, and I wanted to see if I could dominate America. In order to win this game, you have to get more electoral votes than the opposing party. This game is kind of like Risk, in a way, as it’s got that ‘take over the world” sense to it. I think the change this game is trying to promote is rising the interest in younger citizens to vote when they’re older, so that more people choose to vote and that might improve the government, but, in my honest opinion, I don’t think this is a great plan. If all the people playing this game are around my age(14), then they probably won’t remember this game by the time they are able to vote.